President General, Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, on Tuesday approved a priorities' list for Rs 120 billion Sustainable Development Programme (SDP) for Federally Administrated Tribal Area (Fata). SDP spans over 9 years and will be completed by 2015.
The two leaders deliberated over SDP with the officials of the federal government and Fata Secretariat at Presidency for more than three hours. Under the programme, construction of small dams in Fata will be the government's top priority. The president and Prime Minister were informed that over 100 sites have already been identified in Fata, which suit for construction of small dams. These dams will generate power to meet demand in Fata, besides providing water to a vast acreage for irrigation. The next comes infrastructure in the priorities' list.
The meeting was informed that the federal government will provide funds from Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the construction of quality infrastructure to facilitate the people in that area. In order to attract public and private sector investment for setting up industries to supplement government efforts to provide job opportunities to the people and eradicate unemployment.
SDP's other priorities will be development of road network, setting up of health units, schools for quality education, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), training centres to impart training to unskilled people to meet the requirement of the industries and other businesses. SDP is also meant to develop Fata and bring it at par with the developed areas of Pakistan and improve living standard of the people there.
The administrator of Fata secretariat gave a detailed presentation to the meeting on potentials of Fata in different sectors. He said Fata was enriched in different natural precious stones and the government should encourage private sector for their exploitation. According to the administrator, Fata has confirm resources of copper, gold silver and other previous stones.
The meeting also reviewed the progress of the on-going development projects in Fata and expressed satisfaction that utilisation of PSDP allocated for it was 99.7 percent. The meeting was informed that Fata will get Rs 7.5 billion from PSDP this year. In addition to it, Fata will be given special grant for ensuring adequate funds to ensure that its development projects complete well in time.
SDP will also supplement the US sponsored programme of ROZs from where exports to US and Europe will be free of duty and taxes.
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